Official HTC U 11: Review new flagship with Snapdragon 835 and touch-sensitive body

After numerous leaks, HTC finally officially unveiled its new flagship smartphone – HTC U 11. Unlike HTC U Ultra announced earlier this year, the new device received a top-end chipset Snapdragon 835 and several not very useful but original features.

If you follow the latest news, the presentation of HTC U 11 doesn’t surprise you. New smartphone fully corresponds to the flagships of 2017. It is based on the most powerful chipset Snapdragon 835, which is combined with 4 or 6GB of RAM. The built-in storage can be 64 or 128GB, with the support for microSD memory cards.

HTC U 11: Design

The design of HTC U 11 resembles something between U Ultra and U Play. The body of smartphone, certified by the standard IP67, on both sides is covered with Corning Gorilla Glass 5. The screen has a diagonal of 5.5 inches and a resolution of 2560 x 1440 pixels, which provides a high pixel density. The impression is spoiled only a fairly wide frame around display – the flagship smartphone in 2017 should have thinner frame.

HTC U 11: Edge Sense

The main feature of HTC U 11 is Edge Sense system. It allows you to control smartphone with the help of body compression. Pushing the device with a certain force, the user can quickly launch the application or perform another action, for example, take a picture. Naturally, the force of pressing and the actions performed by the sensor can be adjusted at your discretion.

Sound

Also we should say about another features of HTC U 11 – Usonic technology. It allows the headphones to adapt to the peculiarities of the user’s ear canal. New smartphone still has BoomSound Hi-Fi Edition system.

HTC U 11, like U Ultra, has a self-learning personal assistant Sense Companion. It is something like Google Assistant, but even smarter.

HTC U 11: Camera

HTC U 11 has not received dual camera, but it does not mean that the main camera is bad.

DxOMark rating says that main 12 megapixel camera HTC U 11 received 90 scores. It is more than the camera of any other modern smartphone. For comparison, the former leader of DxOMark rating – Google Pixel – has 89 scores, and Samsung Galaxy S8 and last year’s HTC 10 – 88 scores.

As for the front camera, HTC U 11 is equipped with 16-megapixel module with backlight technology, designed to reduce the amount of noise in pictures. The manufacturer also notes that the camera has real-time shooting functions for voice recording. But it is not surprising, because today even low-end devices have such feature.

Battery

The battery is a weak point of new smartphone HTC U 11. Its capacity is only 3000mAh, which in combination with QHD-screen does not allow you to expect long battery life. However, user will have several power-saving modes and support for fast charge technology – Quick Charge 3.0.